This extraordinary volume cover eighteen bustling years, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mexico, Tangier and Paris. The book particularly emphasizes the journey to Paris of the main writers of the Beat Generation, an essential step in their career. The several documents reproduced (photos, manuscripts, album covers, drawings and paintings ...) witness the creative euphoria of the group members, as well as the multidisciplinary nature of the movement (visual arts, literature, jazz, sound poetry ...).

Under the direction of Philippe-Alain Michaud, the volume offers different essays by the greatest experts on the subject. A dozen of unpublished interviews with the protagonists of the movement, as well as excerpts of texts and poems (Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, in particular) enrich the catalog.